Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Weekly and Lenten Challenge

I have started to record food intake again, starting today and ending Saturday. I’ll see how it goes. I do not have the urge to record food in-take everyday for the rest of my life. These four days will have to do for now, and we’ll see what I should do after my next weigh-in on Monday.

I’ve decided to set-up personal weekly challenges and reward myself when I meet those challenges. The recording food in-take for four days will be this week’s challenge. If I complete this challenge I will give myself 50 cents towards my weight loss fund and if I’m within calorie range for three of those days I will give myself another 50 cents. I know it has taken me a long time to mull over and finally decide on a something so simple, but simple is actually very difficult to do. I read other weight loss blogs of those whom belong to Weight Watchers, and I must say, I’m jealous that they have a reward system ingrained in their program. That they don’t have to sit there and think about what reward system would be best. Might be for the better, considering how fiercely independent and defiant I am.

Yesterday, Ly and I were talking about Lent coming up. As usual, Ly has difficulty coming up with what to give up and asked me to decide for him. I tell him, because it always makes him strangely happy since he likes to treat abstinence during Lent as a dare. The drawback, however, is that he thinks he can tell ME what I should give up. Um… I don’t think so. I was ready to say “Don’t tell me what to do!” but this year he actually came up with a good one that I would never have thought of: procrastination. Since I started abstaining for Lent it was always been a toss up between chocolate and TV. It’s high time I try something different.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Vaguely Victorious

I can’t believe that I am posting so soon after my last post! Every day I’m doing better and better. Which appears to be the way I operate. There are rare occasions when I get inspired and I’m operating at full tilt, but most of the time I acknowledge that I need to change and I work away at it like a sculptor chipping away at slab of stone. As for my goals I had set up, the limiting TV/Internet and high calorie foods, I’m doing okay. I’m not being rigorous with keeping track of everything, but I can only recall 3 instances this past week and a half when I had overate high calorie foods and I had actually lost weight this week. That has to account for something. As for limiting TV/Internet, I was able to pull myself away enough to get some filing done. It’s not the type of victory that I would make movies about, but it feels like I’m finally pulling away from failure. Now my next step would be to set up some recording/award system, so that I know for sure when I’m doing good. I had one set up, but it was largely dependent on my calorie intake. Now that I’m no longer caring about that, I should probably think of another system.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

"How did you do it?"

Earlier this month my sister asked me how I lost the weight. It’s that time of year when most people are feeling extra motivated to lose weight, my sister included. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling it, so I wasn’t currently following a healthy lifestyle and had forgotten what I had done to lose all the weight. So when I answered, I wasn’t much help.

“…Ummm…I chose healthy whenever possible, but if I really feel like eating something than eat it…Ummm…When eating desserts I eat about this amount (form small dome with hands)…ummm…(long pause).”

Cousin chimes in to be helpful: “Do you eat small meals throughout the day?”

“…Uh…no… I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes snack.”

Sister says: “Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes snack? Eat whatever you want? So basically, I should keep on doing what I’ve been doing.”

“…uh…ummm…(shrugs).”

I’ve been waiting for the window to help my sister and I totally blew it! So, I’ve thought it over. This is what I ACTUALLY did to lose the weight…

1. Record food intake
2. Plan/schedule exercise
3. Reward myself
4. Find support
5. Try new things

Now, that’s the bare bones of it all of what I did, but I also know that what worked for me may not work for someone else. Heck, it may not work for me currently. What I should have done was help her make her own plan. I should have asked her what she was currently doing and helped come up with her next (or first) step. THAT’S what I’ll do if ever another window opens.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Roni's Contest

Check out Roni’s new contest! I can win a Nutrition Smart Scale from Eat Smart and so can you! Click here for details!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Art of Limiting

I’m having an issue with time and the perception of time. I believe I have none and quite possibly I don’t. I was contemplating eliminating blogging and other activities out of my life, so that I can devote more time for job searching. “But which one?” I thought. So I wrote down all the things I do and would like to do during the week and all the time I actually have. And do you know what I discovered? I discovered that Ly was right. I have plenty of time to do all the things I want to do with time to spare for goofing off. My issue is that I have great difficulty limiting. Once I start daydreaming, it’s hard for me to snap out of it. It’s the same with TV watching and using the Internet. And it’s the same with eating food that I enjoy. All these things are similar to me in that way. At the same time, I can’t just eliminate these things from my life. I would like to go back to when I was living in moderation. I’ve done it before, and I’m sure I can do it again. I just need to practice.

Plan:
Limit TV watching and Internet 2 hours/day
Limit snacks and high-calorie snacks 1 serving/day

Monday, January 07, 2008

Review and Resolution

Thank you everyone for continuing to check in and comment on my blog despite my MIA status. Sorry about that. I have been out of town since the day after Christmas with full intention of blogging, but never doing it. I’ve also been home since the 3rd and haven’t gotten myself to blog until today. But today is the end of my silence and hopefully you’ll be hearing me more frequently this coming year, because that so happens to be one of my weight loss resolutions: to post at least once a week. But before I get to that, I would like to review 2007 year of weight loss.

I started off that year after what I termed as “The Quarter from Hell”. Even with a month off, I was in a pessimistic, depressive slump. During that whole quarter, I promised that I would get back on the exercise/diet wagon with full vigor as soon as vacation hit, but that didn’t happen. It was more of a small crawl. Making my new year’s resolution for last year just felt like routine and I had no optimism in the process. Luckily, the quarter that followed was a more manageable load. I was able to put attention to my weight loss and actually saw it as a welcome break from school work and internship. I joined SparksPeople and was able to successfully log in my food intake for which was quite a feat, considering the year before this was something I struggled at. As I predicted, weight loss became much easier after I started recording, and I lose the weight in an almost predictable manner. However, I struggled with the whole recording process. I had difficulty gauging the calories I was consuming and obsessed over what I ate. I felt guilty for going over the recommended range of weight loss, and I didn’t like feeling guilty. During the middle of the year, I worked on letting go of the guilt with the help of intuitive eating. I continued to record but I used the numbers instead as something to reflect on. However, a drawback of letting go of guilt has been my abandonment with sweets and chocolate. Especially chocolate. Before, I was eating chocolate in moderation, but come Halloween, all of that went out the window. A part was also because of winter blues. My numbers were off the roof, and I became indifferent to them. Come December, I became tired of recording food intake and decided to take a break. It seemed pointless since seeing the outrageous amount of calories I consumed per day did not discourage me from over eating.

For the year I lost around 30 pounds! 50 pounds since my highest. And I must admit. Life without the weight is so much sweeter. I feel prettier and confident, and Ly and I are having more sex. Despite my recent spiral into over-indulgence, I conclude that this has been a successful year of weight loss. Things that I did well this year was to maintain regular exercise, record food intake, weigh-in regularly, and blog.

Things I would like to work on for this year is to control over-indulging and to stretch everyday and of course to maintain the good habits I have obtained so far. My goal for this year would be to reach my target weight and maintain.

This year feels much more optimistic than last year, but this year weight loss is not my number one resolution. There is also the trouble of finding work, which would take priority. Seeing how weight loss fits in the coming year will be interesting.
I fear no one’s opinion! I am knowledgeable, focused, and efficient. I make this priority and build from experience. I do this for my children and myself. Supported by love, I will persevere.